Social Media

HOW TO: Use Twitter for Customer Service

Customer service can evoke some serious misgivings or negative emotions. Although customer support is designed to help the consumer, the pain of waiting for a phone representative and the impersonal emails can cause more damage than good for a brand. People are turned off by the term and companies have begun to use different terminology to describe their efforts.

This is not how customer service has to be. With the connectivity made possible by social media, companies have found a new way to engage their customers, solve their problems, and build goodwill for their brands: Twitter. Understanding how Twitter can transform customer relations for the better can be substantial for reducing costs and improving brand image.

Step 1. Understand why Twitter is an ideal customer service platform

Before calling the company executives into a meeting and telling them we must use Twitter, you need to understand just why Twitter and customer service is a match made in heaven. Let's think about some of the major tenants of good customer service and how they relate to Twitter:

Problem resolution: The main goal of customer service is to help someone resolve their issues. While phone conversations can help solve problems, wait times do not. Twitter is a lightning-fast platform that can help sift through and solve problems quickly. If it's a small issue, a single tweet may be enough. For a more complex problem, the brand can initiate a deeper conversation with the customer.

Positive brand image: Great customer service gets talked about, and this can lead to more sales and more attention. Twitter is one of the most viral platforms around, which can make one happy customer into an international story.

Staff involvement: If the team does not buy into the notion of helping the customer, they are going to provide sub-par assistance. Twitter is not only a more interesting platform than phone or email, but gives staff a better picture of their impact on others.

Cost reduction: Customer service via Twitter often takes less time and a lot less money than a dedicated call center. With Twitter, it's necessary to be short and to the point, which reduces the time needed to solve each problem.

Step 2. Track the ENTIRE conversation around your brand

Once you understand how Twitter can play a role in customer service, the next step should center around conversation tracking. What are people already saying about your brand? Have people misinterpreted your message? What about the good things they say about your new feature? Track ALL the possible keywords that are related to your brand, like the names of your key features or any nickname your company may have. Here are two tools we recommend:

Monitter: Monitter makes it simple to track multiple keywords on one page using columns. Create a new column for each new keyword or keyword variation you want to track. Monitter will update in real-time whenever those words are mentioned on Twitter.

Tweetbeep: If your brand isn't getting dozens of mentions per hour, or if you want to be sure you're catching everything, Tweetbeep will check Twitter for you and send you emails with all of the mentions of your brand, as well as links so you can easily save tweets or write a response.

Step 3. Make customers aware of your presence

Watching a conversation gives you a good idea of your brand's reputation and standing in social media and elsewhere, but it's a passive approach. Great customer service is active. To get started, make your Twitter presence known. Ask users to follow you on Twitter, prominently place a button on your website, and advertise that you're trying to engage with your customers in problem resolution via social media. Customer service on Twitter won't work if nobody knows where to find you.

Step 4. Respond quickly and transparently

The key to great customer service is the speed and quality of your response. When you find someone complaining about an issue, @reply them asking if you can help. Don't take an arrogant tone and don't tell them they screwed up. Ask them if they'd like you to intervene and provide them the information they need.

If a problem is sensitive, the customer is extraordinarily upset, or you want to get in contact with a customer fast, either try to direct message them or give them a fast way to contact you, like a special email address or even a personal phone number. Let them know you're there to help and go with them step-by-step.

@replies work best because there are no restrictions on who you can reply to and it provides a public and transparent face to your customer service. Others can see what you're doing, which can help reassure customers or even solve problems they were going to ask you about, saving you additional time.

Step 5. Be engaged in the conversations

Twitter is a conversational platform, and people like to talk to people, so take time to chat as well. Twitter is an opportunity to build an image and identity for the brand, so talking with customers about why you like the brand so much, what cool things the company has done, or retweeting a success story gives people many reasons to follow what you say.

So remember, even if you're using a software like Salesforce's Service Cloud to manage Twitter customer service, it needs to be supplemented with personal conversations.

Step 6. Be authentic

Most of all, when you're conducting customer service and customer relationship management, you need to be forthcoming. It's easier than ever for your customers to research whether or not you're telling the truth. And if you aren't, they will punish you by mobilizing and making their anger heard. I can give you plenty of examples where this was the case.

Despite this warning, the benefits to your brand and your customers by using Twitter as a customer service platform are immense. Comcast, Dell, Southwest Airlines, Ford, Starbucks, and many more have been successful in promoting a positive brand image and solving customer problems with less cost than phone or email service. Twitter and social media are helping redefine how customer service is done.

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is a leading source for news, information and resources for the Connected Generation. Mashable reports on the importance of digital innovation and how it empowers and inspires people around the world. Mashable's record 42 million unique visitors worldwide and 21 million social media followers are one of the most influential and engaged online communities. Founded in 2005, Mashable is headquartered in New York City with an office in San Francisco.